Chancellor: Sorry for 'Wealthy white Manhattan parents' tweet

NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza (pictured on April 25) apologized Monday for retweeting a news report about parents opposing the integration of schools on Manhattans Upper West Side, which contained an inflammatory headline.

City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza called on the city to “take a breath” and consider the thorny issue of school segregation as he apologized Monday for a tweet last week in which he called out white parents for failing to integrate their schools.

Carranza, 51, the son of Mexican immigrants, took to Twitter at 1 a.m. Friday to share a RawStory recap of a raucous Upper West Side school meeting where white parents spoke out against controversial plans to integrate some of the neighborhoods middle schools.

“WATCH: Wealthy white Manhattan parents angrily rant against plan to bring more black kids to their schools,” Carranza tweeted from his official @DOEChancellor account with a link to the video, which originally appeared on NY1.

Hours later, Mayor de Blasio appeared to temper the tweet on “The Brian Lehrer Show,” saying, “This was his own personal voice . . . I might phrase it differently.”

On Monday, Carranza walked back the tweet himself, saying the inflammatory headline wasnt his and apologizing to anyone who might have been offended.

“I will pay more attention in future when I retweet, to make sure that the language that is automatically generated in the re-tweet is something that I would say,” Carranza said, adding: “If that has caused any kind of pain, then I apologize for it.”

Carranza, who took the citys top schools job April 2, also urged people to exercise patience with the citys slow-developing plans to desegregate schools, which are among the most racially divided in the nation.

“Listen folks, take a breath,” Carranza said. “The criticism of my predecessor Chancellor (Carmen) Fariña was that she didnt do anything about this. And here I am in my first month, actually engaging in this conversation.”

He added: “Lets just take a breath and let the process develop.”

Carranza faces pressure from parents, students and activists who seek to integrate the public schools — even though not all families are on board.

A 2014 report from UCLA found New York schools are the most segregated in the United States, with some particularly extreme examples in the citys public schools.

De Blasio has vowed to address the issue for years.

His desegregation plans have been criticized for doing too little, yet they still draw fire from parents seeking to protect the status quo.

In the NY1 video Carranza retweeted, angry white parents protested a plan to set admissions targets to diversify some Upper West Side public schools. One mom tried to imagine telling children who worked hard to go to their schools that they cant because of the admissions goals.

“Youre telling them that youre not going to go to a school thats going to educate them the same way youve been educated,” the mom said of the plans. “Life sucks!”